afghanistan

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday telephoned Prime Minister Imran Khan to discuss the ongoing international efforts for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.

During the call, Ghani “expressed his gratitude for Pakistan’s sincere facilitation of these efforts” that were initiated by US special envoy for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office said.

Khan assured the Afghan president that Pakistan was making “sincere efforts for a negotiated settlement” of the Afghan conflict through an inclusive peace process, “as part of shared responsibility”.

Ghani invited the premier to visit Afghanistan at his earliest convenience and Khan reciprocated by inviting the Afghan president to visit Pakistan.

“Both leaders also agreed to remain engaged and create an environment for resolving all outstanding issues,” the press release said.

The conversation between the two leaders comes as Khalilzad earlier today arrived in Pakistan as part of a regional tour to four countries for talks on the Afghan peace process.

According to the Foreign Office, the US special envoy is expected to meet Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders during his stay and he will ask Pakistan to help convince the Afghan Taliban to come to the negotiating table. “Pakistan has also maintained [that] we want an Afghan-led Afghan-owned solution to [the] imbroglio,” the FO spokesperson said in a statement.

Pakistan is believed to be making serious efforts to arrange a meeting between Khalilzad and Afghan Taliban leaders in Islamabad to help break the deadlock and speed up the Afghan peace process.

The US envoy is actively trying to broker a political solution to the Afghan conflict and has held multiple meetings with the leadership of Afghanistan as well as that of other countries in the region, including Pakistan.

He has also held three rounds of talks with the Afghan Taliban in order to reach a settlement that would allow the US to withdraw its army and end a 17-year-old war — America’s longest.

Karachi Police Chief Dr Amir Ahmed Shaikh during a media briefing on Friday said that the attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi was planned in Afghanistan and carried out with the assistance of Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

In November last year, three heavily armed militants attempted to enter the Chinese consulate in the ‘high security zone’ of Clifton’s Block-4 but were shot dead in an encounter with law enforcers. The gun-and-grenade assault also claimed the lives of two police officials and two visa applicants, and injured a private guard of the foreign mission. The banned Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) had claimed credit for the attack.

The additional inspector general of police disclosed that at least five facilitators have been arrested so far from Karachi, Hub and Quetta during the probe.

He said that based on the police’s investigation, the attack was aimed at sabotaging the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and meant to create trouble between Pakistan and China. “They wanted China to believe that Karachi is not [a] safe [city].”

Sharing the details of the attack, he said that the trained terrorists had been observing the consulate and particularly its visa section for almost four months. “They used to sit in the visa section of the consulate to observe when the gates open and other details.”

“They transported weapons in a boat engine from Quetta to Karachi through train service,” he said, adding that the weapons and other material were dumped at a house in Baldia Town area of Karachi.

“The terrorists used fake computerised national identity cards,” he said. “We are writing to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Pakistan Railways to upgrade their security mechanism so that the facilities of the railways and the National Database & Registration Authority (Nadra) are not abused by terrorists.”

He shared several photographs “recovered from the cell phones of the terrorists”. One of the facilitators was a cousin of Aslam alias Acho — the alleged mastermind of the attack — while another was the brother-in-law of another high-profile terrorist, who is considered to be the second to Acho, said Shaikh.

Shaikh added that there were reports that Acho and some other high-profile terrorists had been killed in an attack in Afghanistan but he refused to believe the news until and unless he “sees the bodies or any solid proof”.

It is an old tactic of terrorists to get themselves declared ‘killed’ to divert the attention of law enforcement agencies, he added.

Consulate’s reconnaissance

Earlier, sources familiar with the proceedings of the investigation had told that one of the killed militants, Abdul Raziq, resident of Kharan, with his accomplice Abdul Latif, hailing from Khuzdar in Balochistan, had visited Karachi on Aug 6 also. They had both stayed at hotels in Lyari and Saddar and conducted reconnaissance of the consulate.

With the help of technology, it was also discovered that the killed militants had also stayed in Sindh’s two cities, Shahdadpur and Sukkur, before going back to Quetta. They returned to Karachi via Hub, Balochistan, on the night of Nov 23 and stayed for a while in the Shershah area of Karachi before launching the gun-and-grenade attack.

PESHAWAR: The Taliban will not attend planned peace talks with the United States in Saudi Arabia this month, and want to shift the venue to Qatar, Taliban officials said on Sunday, seeking to fend off Riyadh’s push to include the Afghan government in talks.

The upcoming negotiations, the fourth in a series aimed at ending the 17-year war in Afghanistan, are scheduled between the leaders of the Taliban and US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to discuss the withdrawal of foreign forces and a possible ceasefire in 2019.

Leaders of the hardline Islamic militant group have rejected the Kabul government’s offer for direct talks, despite growing international pressure in favour of the Western-backed Afghan government having a seat at the table.

“We were supposed to meet US officials in Riyadh next week and continue our peace process that remained incomplete in Abu Dhabi last month,” a senior Taliban member based in Afghanistan told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“The problem is that leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) wanted us to definitely meet the Afghan government delegation, which we cannot afford to do now, and we have cancelled the meeting in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

The Taliban want to change the venue for the talks to Qatar, he said, the political headquarters of the militant group that is fighting to restore strict Islamic law in Afghanistan and the site for earlier talks.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the group has decided to cancel the meeting in Saudi Arabia, but did not provide information about a new meeting venue.

The United States embassy in Afghanistan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Another senior Taliban leader said the group had explained to Saudi Arabia that it was not possible for the Taliban to meet the Afghan government at this stage.

“Everyone is aware of the fact that the Afghan government wanted the US and its allies not to leave Afghanistan and we have paid a heavy price to expel all foreign forces from our country,” he said. “Why should we talk to the Afghan government?”

WASHINGTON: A US Senator, who plans to contest the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump, has said she supports withdrawing American troops from military engagements in Syria and Afghanistan.

“I think it is right to get our troops out of Syria and let me add, I think it is right to get our troops out of Afghanistan,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who declared last week that she plans to run against President Trump in 2020. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee already, Senator Warren already has a say in military matters.

President Trump and senior officials of his administration announced recently that they planned to withdraw all US troops from Syria and half of the 14,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Senator Warren’s remarks, made during an interview to MSNBC television this week, shows that the pressure for pulling out troops from Afghanistan is being felt in both Republican and Democratic parties.

Although known for her strong criticism of President Trump and his views, Ms Warren refused to condemn his decision to withdraw troops from war-zones.

“I think that everybody who keeps saying, ‘No, no, no, we can’t do that (withdraw troops),’ in the defence establishment needs to explain what they think winning in those wars [looks] like and where the metrics are,” she said.

But the US lawmaker disagreed with President Tru­mp’s abrupt announcements on such sensitive issues, saying policies shouldn’t be conducted via Twitter.

“We actually need to plan this out and talk about it with our allies, how we ens­ure more safety and stability in the region,” she said.

Observers in Washington say that the Afghan war has become so unpopular in the United States that no American politician would like to advocate keeping troops there. And the talk of recalling troops from Afgha­nistan would grow louder when the election campaign starts later this year.

China has tested its most powerful non-nuclear weapon, dubbed the “Mother of All Bombs” by official media in a reference to a US munition used in Afghanistan.

In a short video published on the website of state arms manufacturer Norinco, the massive bomb drops on to a plain and produces a gigantic ball of fire and black smoke.

On social networks on Wednesday, the official Xinhua news agency described the bomb for the first time, calling it the “Chinese version of the ‘Mother of all Bombs'”.

The bomb — whose strength is only second to that of a nuclear weapon, according to the agency — was dropped by a Chinese H-6K bomber.

No details on the date, location or range of the bomb blast were provided.

In 2017 the US dropped the most powerful conventional bomb in its arsenal, dubbed the ‘MOAB’ — the ‘Mother of All Bombs’ — in an attempt to destroy a tunnel network being used by the Islamic State (IS) group in the east of Afghanistan.

US president Donald Trump said at the time he was “proud” of his troops and congratulated them on their success.

The Chinese bomb is five to six metres long (16 to 20 feet), but weighs less than the American version, according to military analyst Wei Dongxu, who was quoted by the semi-official Global Times daily on Friday.

“The massive explosion that was generated would easily wipe out land fortifications,” said Wei.

NEW DELHI: India rejected US President Donald Trump’s comments mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, saying on Thursday that New Delhi has provided $3 billion in development assistance to the war-torn country.

The US president on Wednesday took a swipe at what he claimed were Modi’s frequent comments on building the library: “You know what that is? That’s like five hours of what we spend. “And we’re supposed to say, ‘Oh, thank you for the library.’ I don’t know who’s using it in Afghanistan,” Trump said.

A statement provided by government sources in New Delhi said “India plays a significant role as a development partner,” in Afghanistan, with projects aimed at achieving “a tangible improvement in the lives of its people”.

As the “largest donor in the region”, New Delhi has helped with infrastructure projects, humanitarian assistance and economic development, the statement said.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday mocked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, suggesting it was of no use.

Trump brought up India’s aid during a rambling press appearance at a cabinet meeting as he defended his push for the United States to invest less overseas.

While stating that he got along with Modi, Trump said the Indian leader was “constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan”.

“You know what that is? That’s like five hours of what we spend,” Trump said.

“And we’re supposed to say, ‘Oh, thank you for the library.’ I don’t know who’s using it in Afghanistan,” Trump said.

It was unclear to which project Trump was referring, but India has committed $3 billion in assistance to Afghanistan since US-led forces toppled the extremist Taliban regime after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Projects have included the reconstruction of an elite high school in Kabul and scholarships to India for 1,000 Afghan students each year.

Inaugurating the Afghan parliament building in 2015 after reconstruction financed by India, Modi promised to promote programmes “empowering Afghan youth with modern education and professional skills”.

India has been one of the most enthusiastic countries over the US mission in Afghanistan, where the former Taliban regime sheltered fiercely anti-Indian militants.

Trump last month moved to pull all 2,000 US troops out of Syria and cut by half the 14,000-strong force in Afghanistan, calling for less spending overseas.

Alluding in Wednesday’s remarks to the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Trump said: “Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan.”